Yahoo is selling TechCrunch to private equity firm Regent
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TC was so completely op 20 years ago, it was ridiculous. Had a tiny startup back then, not even in the US and all of a sudden started getting calls from VCs, including Bessemer and alike. Turns out there was a 3-line mention on the TC. He just asked if anyone heard of us ... lol. Good times.
I was a long-time reader, and being in a peripheral place where we looked up to the American companies, TC sounded very optimistic with their coverage, bringing success stories, talking with founders, and most importantly, being on this industry radar, at least from the standpoint of a more journalistic and general audience level.
During the latest years, TC became a bit bitter around the industry and forgot the sea of small companies and scale-ups, and started to be more political and critical, and the least being a good thing in a certain way, probably does not have the ideological muscle to do it like the more mainstream media. In other words, if I want to check some critique, I would go to some independent and ideological shop and get the straight point, then some sugar-coated criticism.
If that's true, it accurately reflects what I see as societies changing attitudes to the industry, driven the enshiffication of tech, privacy scandals, degrading of work conditions and political actions by certain tech leaders.
Of course I am not trying to rationalize their side that is harmful for several societies, but at least for me, TC used to be the place where I could find companies doing something useful for a couple of people.
PersonallyI would pay a service like TC circa 2014-2017 that is a directory of start-ups/scale-ups and bring some great digest about the industry in a more nuanced view in terms of capabilities and new companies.
This phrase is a good example of it, as though every bad business decision were somehow part of an inevitable war. Some companies make good decisions; some make bad ones; and it changes over time. But now we have to have someone in every comment section mention this "inevitability", which just has a chilling effect on perception of the industry.
I see what you're saying, but your message implies that this perception of the industry isn't understandable/fair on a personal level and/or that it doesn't reflect the trajectory the industry has taken. Do you feel the perception among consumers is not earned, or that it is not "fair" for people to feel this way as the tools and places people use to use change, switch to subscriptions, harvest ever more data, fight against ad blocking technology, etc.?
This isn't the fault of the tech journalists in my opinion, their bitterness and the tech industry's perception is a symptom of a shared root cause in my opinion.
Here is just a sample of 5 articles written by a NYT tech journalist:
- There’s Nothing to Like in Facebook’s Plans to Hook Our Kids
- The Maps That Steer Us Wrong
- Apple’s Illusion of Privacy Is Getting Harder to Sell
- Why Tesla’s ‘Beta Testing’ Puts the Public at Risk
- The Assault on Our Privacy Is Being Conducted in Private
Pretty much every article is how some tech company or piece of tech is bad. That's fine if you believe that, but then why would you be interested in a tech publication? If you're not a fan of guns, why read a gun publication?
It's just weird. It's part of a growing trend where there are decisions and a narrative pushed against the desires of consumers. No one wants this crap. It's expensive self sabotage and I never got an answer as to why.
https://mleverything.substack.com/p/tech-journalists-that-ha...
Although I agree there is probably a heavier slant towards negativity when discussing tech. I share some of the skepticism about AI but it's still potentially very exciting which you don't get from a lot of commentators.
I'm OK with the articles around privacy, political influence, power affluency, and surveillance, but when this becomes the main agenda for a publication that has as a target public starttups, VCs, and other parts of their ecosystem, it's hard to stick with that. In other words, I feel better seeing that kind of content in a more nuanced and in-depth way in The Atlantic, NYT or other independent media than in a publication that does not have that pedigree.
That’s someone else’s job. Injecting politics might sound like it “complements” the product but I don’t think it does in this case and rather distracts from the “core mission”.
Edit: imo, just another owner, a yawn for most employees/contractors. Part of the reason for the spin, combined with the need to placate the new owner.
> In March 2025, Regent acquired Foundry, the owner of technology publications such as PC World, Macworld, and InfoWorld, from International Data Group and acquired TechCrunch from Yahoo!.
Is TechCrunch still as hyped as it was 10 years ago?
I’m genuinely interested to know what others think.
VCs still seem to track CrunchBase, but that is a separate company.
The closest similarity I could see based from Regent's past is Sunset magazine, which still seems to be doing well & printing physical issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_(magazine)#Sale_to_Rege...
*EDIT: And before anyone pushes out a narrative: The financial troubles that the magazine faced happened well before Regent's appearance, and their acquisition has kept the magazine alive up until now.